Re: Zel's Fleet Blog...Jag, Citroens, Mercedes, Sinclair & AC Model 70
Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 1:16 am
The most obvious thing in the engine bay which was making my teeth itch (aside from the horrendous racket from the knackered camshaft anyway) was the state of the air cleaner. It was a rusty, scabby mess which immediately drew your eye the moment you opened the bonnet.
That got pulled off today for a really quick and dirty respray. The high voltage warning sticker had seen better days too.
As had the foam in the intake silencer, so I pulled as much of that out as I could just to save it getting sucked into the filter. After a really quick rub down with a sanding block it was given a couple of quick coats of satin black. I think it was a really dark grey originally, and I will probably try to get it closer to the right colour further down the road - for now "tidy" is the main thing I'm after.
The results speak for themselves I think...it won't stick out quite so much once it's got a bit of general dust and such on it.
It no longer immediately draws your attention when you open the bonnet at least, which was the main object of this whole exercise. All 30 minutes of it. Happy with the result.
The replacement for the dodgy DAB+ antenna adaptor for the stereo arrived this morning (I did look to see if I could get one locally, but the only place I could find one was Halfords - and they wanted £35 for a whole antenna kit, so eBay it was in the end), so I finally have a fully functioning stereo now with both analogue and digital modes working.
Even though I know I'll probably never really use it, knowing it didn't work was going to bug me!
While I was out a bit later in the day I grabbed another couple of photos just because I could. These will be good for a before/after comparison after I've done some polishing and a few bits of paint touchup work.
A pretty major milestone was achieved for me today in that for the first time ever I have actually 3D printed a replacement part for one of my cars.
This (while it obviously still needs some finishing off and painting an appropriate colour) will be a replacement for the broken bonnet catch pull.
Yes I know proper replacements are about a fiver...but that's not the point. I needed to replace it and I randomly stumbled across the model for this, and it's a pretty flat part so took less than an hour to print...so this was a far more interesting solution than just buying a new one. Will clean that up, paint it and hopefully get it fitted tomorrow.
Really need to try to get a replacement for the broken bit of exhaust ordered in because that blow is really quite annoying - not a huge amount of places seem to have them in stock though (especially not at silly prices), and most of those seem to be the same brand as the systems I fitted to the van and Xantia. I'd really rather not buy another one of those as the fit on both of those was diabolically poor and involves massive amounts of swearing to fit. Oh, and the silencer on the van arrived devoid of any baffles. So it's quite likely that I'll just wind up getting a replacement section made up in stainless, especially as it's a pretty short bit that's affected and the rest of the system is pretty healthy.
That got pulled off today for a really quick and dirty respray. The high voltage warning sticker had seen better days too.
As had the foam in the intake silencer, so I pulled as much of that out as I could just to save it getting sucked into the filter. After a really quick rub down with a sanding block it was given a couple of quick coats of satin black. I think it was a really dark grey originally, and I will probably try to get it closer to the right colour further down the road - for now "tidy" is the main thing I'm after.
The results speak for themselves I think...it won't stick out quite so much once it's got a bit of general dust and such on it.
It no longer immediately draws your attention when you open the bonnet at least, which was the main object of this whole exercise. All 30 minutes of it. Happy with the result.
The replacement for the dodgy DAB+ antenna adaptor for the stereo arrived this morning (I did look to see if I could get one locally, but the only place I could find one was Halfords - and they wanted £35 for a whole antenna kit, so eBay it was in the end), so I finally have a fully functioning stereo now with both analogue and digital modes working.
Even though I know I'll probably never really use it, knowing it didn't work was going to bug me!
While I was out a bit later in the day I grabbed another couple of photos just because I could. These will be good for a before/after comparison after I've done some polishing and a few bits of paint touchup work.
A pretty major milestone was achieved for me today in that for the first time ever I have actually 3D printed a replacement part for one of my cars.
This (while it obviously still needs some finishing off and painting an appropriate colour) will be a replacement for the broken bonnet catch pull.
Yes I know proper replacements are about a fiver...but that's not the point. I needed to replace it and I randomly stumbled across the model for this, and it's a pretty flat part so took less than an hour to print...so this was a far more interesting solution than just buying a new one. Will clean that up, paint it and hopefully get it fitted tomorrow.
Really need to try to get a replacement for the broken bit of exhaust ordered in because that blow is really quite annoying - not a huge amount of places seem to have them in stock though (especially not at silly prices), and most of those seem to be the same brand as the systems I fitted to the van and Xantia. I'd really rather not buy another one of those as the fit on both of those was diabolically poor and involves massive amounts of swearing to fit. Oh, and the silencer on the van arrived devoid of any baffles. So it's quite likely that I'll just wind up getting a replacement section made up in stainless, especially as it's a pretty short bit that's affected and the rest of the system is pretty healthy.